020 ARISE: NEWS ARISE: NEWS 021 AROUND AFRICA THE NUMBers THAT MATTer THis MONTH EASTERN SKATEBOARD In the working-class suburbs of Kampala in Uganda, two young Kitintale locals named Shael and John came together in 2006 for a three-month project to build a skate park. The resulting construction is a testament to the tenacity, enthusiasm and determination of kids who 2.9 took up skateboarding to alleviate the boredom and Length in kilometres of the poverty that afflicts the area. But it’s not without its train that takes iron ore 223 difficulties. The project relies solely on donations and is from the mines of Zouérat limited by how many skateboards can be requisitioned and Fdérik to the port of from benefactors abroad. But its popularity proves the PYraMIDS effort is worth it. “Skating teaches patience, embraces Nouadhibou in Mauritania. It is have been discovered in ancient Sudan, solidarity, eliminates idleness and builds self-esteem for made up of up to 250 carriages 85 more than in Egypt young kids,” explains photographer Cassi A. Gibson, who recently visited Kitintale. “The long-term goal is for the skate park to expand and to hold competitions around East Africa. The more we spread the word, the more likely million US$ £70,000 6.5 TONNES the park will attract donors… and ultimately it will be a – the price place kids can have fun, which is its most important value.” Price of world’s most of marijuana found at Sulaiman 2 scientists at To find out more or make a donation, visit their website. expensive suit, created by Adebayo’s Lagos home. He claimed mobile Côte1 d’Ivoire’s National www.ugandaskateboardunion.org Ghanaian designer to be 114 years old and said that phones Agronomic Research Alexander Amosu. he thought it was rice per hundred Centre have put on It took 80 hours people in a three-headed to make, has over Ethopia – in hybrid coconut 5,000 stitches and South Africa it’s 84 tree they’ve nine 18-carat gold developed 4 SOLar diamond buttons ECLIPses 200 Number of VisiBLE in internet users in Somalia DR CONGO 35 in THE neXT Age of current DECADE, THE Madagascan president Andry MOST IN Rajoelina, the youngest RINGING THE CHANGES THE WORLD in Africa Africa’s engaging with mobile KeePING phones. So, who’s on the line? tonnes is the weight of the Hoba ASSI A. GIBSON ASSI IT REEL meteorite, the world’s heaviest, C 281million mobile phone subscribers O found near Grootfontein, T With no formal training and little funding, passion is what HO in Africa – 30 per cent of the population P 60Namibia. It measures three metres by one drives Ugandan filmmaking collective Yes! That’s Us, who describe their method as 10,000 fixed-line phones in DR Congo KUMU ‘gue-realism’. “It’s a fusion of the speed and mobility metre and is thought to have landed on O €11 The cost of the cheapest Motorola earth more than 80,000 years ago of guerilla filmmaking and the realism in the storytelling last year, their feature-length picture, Divizionz, won two phone sold in Africa of Italian neo-realism or cinema novo,” explains Don African Movie Academy Awards, putting them alongside 1million mobile phone subscribers Mugisha, one of the collective’s five members. the cream of Nollywood – a scene that Mugisha says in DR Congo Reputed age Members of the group trade editing and directing provides the DIY ethos for other emerging African film roles with each production – and it works. Their five- industries. Mugisha hopes Uganda can replicate Nigeria’s 0.6 per cent growth of a developing of Moloko country’s GDP for every 10 new mobile 134 minute long film 610 won the Impala Golden Award at The success, and also cites its local music industry as an Temo, who died in June. Amakula Kampala International Film Festival in 2006. And inspiration: “You don’t see any real structure, but the phone subscribers She claimed to be the music business is booming. The same revolution could 561million Predicted number of mobile oldest woman in happen in the film industry and see local production take its rightful place.” Meanwhile, Yes! That’s Us are preparing phone subscribers in Africa by 2012 South Africa MADDEN, PHIONA JAMES DOORNE, DUNCAN their second feature for release in August 2009. – 53.5 per cent of the population RDS WO www.myspace.com/yesthatsus 022 ARISE: NEWS ARISE: SECTION 000 SLAP AND TICKLE After 25 years with a lip brush in hand, make-up artist Beverley Binda decided it was time to apply some cover-up to a “From Cleopatra on, make-up has lured women because crack in the beauty market. Where, she wondered, was a it is empowering,” she says. “It enables us to present fun, feminine make-up brand that focused on ethnic to the world that bit of us that we want to show and colouring? There wasn’t one, so she set up blouse&skirt. the elements that we want to express.” “The attitude towards make-up for ethnic skins Blouse&skirt has already been picked up by Selfridges. remains too serious and earnest, which is why “To get a small brand launched into one of the busiest blouse&skirt is so quirky.” Think bold, brave colours, and beauty floors in Europe is a real coup,” she smiles. And plans girl-power memos on every package. to expand blouse&skirt are underway; the latest addition Binda’s been up to her eyelashes in make-up since she to hit the shelves is ‘Scarlett’ lip gloss. Binda says: “Red is was a seven-year-old using Smarties for lipstick. Years everywhere on the catwalks this summer and there’s later she studied at the respected BBC Make-Up School nothing more decadent and glamourous than a and has since worked on scores of TV shows and film, saucy splash of red lips.” earning an Oscar nomination for her work on Mrs Brown. blouseandskirtcosmetics.com The new Ulysse Nardin Chairman smartphone has a 2.8-inch multitouch screen, fingerprint lock to its 5.0megapixel camera and THE HILLS wi-fi. Even more clever, it charges the battery using natural movement. www.ulysse- ARE ALIVE nardin.com When foreign press began arriving in Rwanda in 1994, reporting on a genocide that had claimed almost a million lives, Eric Kabera felt compelled to do his part. Trained in London as a journalist first feature-length film to come out of Rwanda. For the film stories in Rwanda in the years after the genocide, with Reuters, Kabera quickly found his niche as a fixer first time, says Kabera, audiences were able to see the recalls the festival’s director, Pierre Kayitana, “we had for Western news agencies – arranging interviews for story of the genocide “through the eyes of Rwandans.” no-one with the technical training they needed. They journalists and offering logistical help to reporters The movie was lauded by audiences and critics; Variety could not even say to a Rwandan, ‘Hand me that camera. travelling around the tiny, land-locked country. called it “docudrama filmmaking at its finest.” Suddenly, Pass me the boom.’ People did not know what a camera But for Kabera, the stories filed by those same in a country that boasted one cinema, where the average or a boom was.” reporters often struck the wrong chord. Few seemed annual income was hardly enough to buy a colour TV, Today’s crop of Rwandan auteurs has grown to accurately portray what was happening in Rwanda Rwandan cinema was born. comfortable in its new cinematic skin. The mission now, during those 100 bloody days; fewer still seemed Less than a decade later, having built a film according to Kabera, is for young filmmakers to continue MAKING concerned with placing the violence in a broader community from the ground up, Kabera can enjoy the to find their own voices, and to push Rwandan cinema in context that might make sense of the bloodshed. fruits of his labours. This June, the Rwanda Film Festival a direction that goes “beyond the genocide.” Kabera suspected that viewers watching news celebrates its fifth anniversary with a busy fortnight of “At the end of the day, you just feel like there’s a HISTORY clips of the genocide in the West couldn’t even find films and festivities, showcasing the work of Rwandan strong appetite to dream, to live, to smile,” he says. Rwanda on a map. He had the sense that people and international filmmakers. The celebration kicks off “Though we have to reflect on our tragic past… we have This summer, 50 top designers from across the continent didn’t care. with ‘Hillywood’, a week-long programme which tours the to get people to move on. And cinema can do it.” will showcase together at the very first ARISE Africa Fashion Week. So he sought to change that. Armed with his country, showing Rwandan movies on inflatable screens www.rwandafilmfestival.org. Organised by African Fashion International (AFI), this unique, own modest background in film, Zaire-born to rural audiences. The festival then continues in the epoch-defining event from June 12-20 is proudly sponsored Kabera paired with BBC veteran Nick Hughes to capital, Kigali, where an international selection of films by ARISE magazine. shoot 100 Days – a portrait of the genocide and the is the backdrop for a busy week of networking, deal-making, and red-carpeted after-parties. ARISE editor-in-chief Nduka Obaigbena says: It’s an improbable achievement for Kabera and “ARISE recently presented the African Fashion Collective company, considering the hurdles they’ve had to at New York Fashion Week.